Driving Lessons
by muffin Lady 0o
Summary: I return my gaze to Rita, and I can't help but imagine her in one of those bikinis the dolls back home wore, running on a beach somewhere from a TV show I saw once. Baywatch, or something. Poor Roddy can't drive to save his soul. Rita's going to teach him


-1**A/N: I wrote this the night after seeing the movie in theatres, and then I waited until I found a category for it. Except, this isn't a category, it's random cartoons or something. This is only it's temporary home. Sorry beforehand for my mistakes. **

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. **

I sit at the back of the boat, arms draped across the seat behind me, and enjoying the view before me while the wind tosses my hair back from my face, playing a cool breeze across it. Not that the dirty old brick walls forming a tunnel around us were all that good looking, nor was the sludge-like water very appealing to the eye. No, I am more focused on the woman standing before me, driving the boat I was enjoying my ride in.

I had been in the sewer for what, a week now, since I had become a hero for saving it? It was hard to keep track of time down here, sometimes. But already, I was becoming one of the many civilians. I had traded in my stiff and uncomfortable doll pants for two pieces of denim material we found, and had sewn together with white dental floss. Like the kind I used when I brushed my teeth, though without the mint, which was a pity. I rather liked the smell of that mint.

My shirt and shoes I kept, only because they were comfortable. Comfort was a priority down here, for me. Maybe not to anyone else, but I, for one, was not going to wear a barrel over myself and call it a shirt if it was convenient.

I return my gaze to Rita, captaining the ship in front of me. As much as I adore her in her mint-green shirt and Union Jack pants, I can't help but imagine her in one of those bikinis the dolls back home wore, running on a beach somewhere, slowly, hair blowing in the wind behind her. I had gotten that from a television show I had seen that aired here once. Baywatch, or something like that.

I raise a hand and smack myself across the face, erasing the image, and the goofy smile I wear as well. Thoughts like that are prohibited. She deserves her fair share of respect.

"Sha la la la la la my oh my! You're looking quite too shy, you wanna _Kiss the Girl." _something behind me begins to sing. I jump a mile high, and whirl around. There, sitting on the side of the boat, are a few slugs, singing. I glare at them then, with my fists on my hips, my shoe tapping, and my hair a jumbled, mussed-up, nervous mess.

Oh how menacing I must look.

"Sha la la la la la-" They start to sing again, but I knock them off the boat and into the water, to make them shut up! What if Rita hears?

I swivel around on my heel and see her standing, arms folded, with a bemused smile playing across her lips.

"What was that all about, then?" she asks. I pray to all that is Holy that no color will rise into my face. Thankfully, my prayers are answered.

"Er, just stretching my legs! You know how it is, sitting for a long time and you grow stiff?" I say nervously. She raises an eyebrow.

Smooth, Roddy, smooth.

"Well, if you'd care to stay up a bit longer, I could teach you how to drive the boat." She offers. I step up to the wheel.

"Sounds like fun." I say, and take hold of the steering wheel. It is warm under my grip, from where she had just been holding it.

I wonder if she felt the same joy in just being as near to me as I did to her.

Most likely not.

So far, I am doing great. Granted, I am only going in a straight line, but it is still better than swerving. Yet, there is a corner coming up, and I begin to get nervous. Still, I haven't crashed into anything yet.

Yet.

I take the corner a little too sharply, and start yelling while the boat does a three-hundred and sixty degree turn and comes to a halt against a wall. Somewhere, when I started turning, Rita started to say something, but was drowned out by my yells and the slugs', who are shrieking in their little high, squeaky voices as the boat pitches one way, then the other.

With a final jerk, it rights itself, and Rita loses her balance, tumbling towards me. I catch her, and hold her to my chest about her shoulders as the boat rights itself. When we stop, she looks up at me, and I down at her. Both of us are breathing quite heavily, as if we have just completed a marathon. Her eyes bounce back and forth between mine, and there is an intake of breath from the slugs watching. If one of them starts singing so much as one 'Sha la la," I am going to assault them.

Heh heh, assault, a-salt. I created a pun.

"I said to turn the wheel gently! Didn't you hear me?" Rita is the first to break the hypnotic silence and straighten herself. The slugs let out their breath, and I let out the one I hadn't realized I had been holding.

"Terribly sorry, but I was a bit preoccupied with trying not to fly off the boat!" I huff. Rita shakes her head.

"Whatever. Look, we're going home. It's getting late now." I automatically look up to check the sky, and I'm slightly put-out when all I see are the bricks, once again, from the tunnel.

"Fine, we'll go." I say and, once again, return to my seat at the back of the boat, where I return to gazing idly at Rita, and forgetting that such thoughts are prohibited.

After a while, we turn a corner or two, and I'm face-to-face with a rickety old house, different floors sliding atop one another with the soft waves of the current down here. Inside, I see lights and hear yelling. The house looks dangerous, but I know it's fine. This is Rita's house, and the yelling is all of her siblings, chasing each other about indoors and making the house rock more than the current ever could.

She parks the Jammy Dodger II, and we get off onto the dock placed in front of their house. We both take a deep breath, to ready ourselves, and then walk inside. I immediately scan the room for Shocky and Rita's grandmother. Those two are the ones I have to worry about most. I made the mistake of not checking the first time I came in after I saved Rita and the Sewer community. Being attacked by both at once is a pretty painful experience.

"The young lovers return!" shouts the brother closest to her age, wearing a shirt bearing the name 'Bubonic Plague' and pointing dramatically in our direction. Rita and I sigh; We're used to this teasing by now. We let it be. Instantaneously, we are buried under a mountain of little kids. I can't breathe! I need sustenance! I need water!

Quickly, I untangle myself from the mass of munchkins and head for the safety of the kitchen. Rita, after greeting each of them with a hug, follows behind. We reach the kitchen, only to find Rita's mother, standing there and polishing a plate with a dish towel.

"So, how was your date, you two?" she asks. I swallow hard, in hopes that it brings down the blush that has arisen in my cheeks.

It does no such thing.

"Mum, it was not a date." Rita rolls her eyes and sighs, like a kid, explaining why that toy is theirs. Now it is her mother's turn to roll her eyes.

"Call it what you will; You were out all day." She sounds skeptical. I can hear it in her voice. Suddenly, I come up with an argument for her. A valid one.

"She was showing my around the tunnels. I need to memorize them if I'm ever going to get around down here. So she was helping me out." I say. She raises an eyebrow, and I can tell she is still skeptical, even though I speak the truth. Though, it _was_ a pretty crappy excuse.

"Alright. Just keep it PG-13, kids." She warns. Then, while Rita is blushing like nothing I've ever seen and silently cursing the world, her mother turns around and _winks at me! _I feel the color rise in my face again. I've lost count now, how many times I've done that in this one day. I could probably start a record.

For the rest of the night, we mainly socialize with the rest of the family, and I keep reminding myself to stay clear of Shocky and Grandma, until it is time for bed. So while the children are being put to sleep, I go to a closet and pick out a blanket and pillow. When I turn around, Rita is standing there. I start, and then try and get my heart rate to ease down to normal again. She takes the bedding out of my hands and starts to make up the couch, where I sleep every night now.

"If you wake up early tomorrow, I can take you out on the water without interruptions. I can teach you to drive _properly_ then." She says, putting an emphasis on the word properly, as if my driving today was inadequate.

As if.

Rita stands back to admire her handiwork. Even I have to admit, it is pretty good. And I was a pet, to a family! A rich one, at that. With the corners tucked in, military style. You could bounce a quarter on it, and this is an amazing feat in itself, for the couch sags in the middle, where too many little bodies have sat themselves down a few too many times.

I flash her an appreciative smile over my shoulder as she walks away, though I think I'm too late, because she whips around the corner at the top of the stairs by the time I finish my gesture. I lay down on the couch and lock my fingers behind my head, staring at the ceiling.

I think back to today on the boat, and all that happened. There was something about it that just… struck me. Like a bolt of lightning. ZAP! I could have sworn that I had felt a spark somewhere down the line, and it was not at the fault of Shocky.

My thoughts wander around aimlessly around, bouncing from one random thought to another, when they finally reach Sid, the rat who took my place. I wonder how he is doing. I have a very random image of him being chased around the house by a large and white fluffy cat. The thought makes me chuckle, though I know that that would never happen.

Ever so slowly, I feel my consciousness slide farther and farther out of my reach until I am surrounded in darkness. Sid and Rita chased each other around my dreams, perused by a fluffy white cat, with Shocky on top.

Xxxx

I awake the next morning, groggily, to some sort of shadowed figure standing over me. In my barely conscious state-of-mind, I feel the need to protect myself. More than once, I had woken up to an unpleasant sight of Grandma hanging over me, and I was very cautious after that. I bring my hand up and smack the person, whoever it was, in attempts to make them leave me alone.

Instead, I feel something soft and smooth under my lingering hand. I un-squinch my eyes, and am staring back into the face of none other than Rita, who is flinching from my impact.

"Sorry! Terribly sorry! I thought you were someone else!" I jump up off the couch with amazing speed and run do the kitchen to get some ice. When I return, she gives me a withering glare.

"Well, now I'm debating on weather to teach you to drive." she says, snatching the icepack from my hand and slapping it on her face, causing another wince. I feel my stomach drop to my shoes when she says this, but I don't let it show. When Rita makes a decision, Rita makes a decision.

"I was kidding! Pack up your stuff, because we're going to leave before anyone wakes up." she says. My face must brighten noticeably at this, because she laughs aloud as I run to get my sheets packed into the closet. She is already up and standing on the deck of her boat by the time I get outside. She revs the engine.

"You coming aboard?" she asks with a grin. I leap on, not bothering to undo the gate, and run up to the control center, standing next to Rita. She pulls out of the dock and into the open sewer waters, which has no traffic on them whatsoever at this early time.

"So you need to concentrate. Become one with the ship." Rita says, then closes her eyes and steers a perfect corner. I raise an eyebrow; I didn't know inner chi is needed to drive a boat.

"Become one with the boat." Rita says cryptically from under her closed eyelids.

Obviously, this is where all my problems are coming from. I am not skilled in the art of conjoining bodies with inanimate objects.

"Here, you try." Rita now says, stepping out of the way of the wheel. Nervously, I take hold, and try to calm myself down, but it is not possible. I take a few deep breaths, and start driving. Slowly, and cautiously.

"Sha la la la la la la la la my oh my! You're-" A single slug drops in front of my face while I'm trying to focus on my driving and I jerk the wheel over, and the boat almost loses control, like last night. I quickly grab the slug and toss it into the water too, so it will stop singing. Rita gives me a look.

"What was that about?" she asks. I try to keep my voice steady. I'm really not a very good liar.

"It startled me. I try to relax and calm down, and it pops out of nowhere." I say. She doesn't look like she believes me, but drops the matter regardless.

I return to driving, but I have thoughts swirling around in my head. Why do those slugs pop up at the most inopportune of moments, anyways? It always seems that they know what I'm thinking.

Maybe they're psychic?

Psychic slugs. Hmmm…

Another slug pops its head into my line of vision, and I glare at it, hoping against hope that it won't start singing. It just stares at me, then retreats back to where it came. I heave a sigh of relief. Those slugs always seem to appear, inopportune or not. I think they may have some sort of obsession with me.

Psychic Stalker Slugs. It has a nice ring.

"Here, you do it like this." Rita says, noticing that I'm not paying attention. She comes up behind me and puts her hands on top of mine, steering the wheel for me. She's trying to teach me, I can tell. But she isn't getting through to me, as I'm too preoccupied trying to regain control of my thoughts from the sudden touch that leaves me breathless, as lame as it may sound.

I feel my stomach do a backflip, and then, something starts to happen to me. I have no idea what it is, though. I start feeling slightly light-headed, and different thoughts begin to flash through my head. Rita, the bathing suit fantasy, her mother winking at me after the comment she had made about us, Rita, laying against my chest while the boat was rocking, the slugs…

The slugs! They and their accursed song! At this thought, the song begins to play in my head, creating an annoying soundtrack to go with the images.

"Kiss the girl!" the slugs in my head squeak at me. "Kiss the girl!"

"Roddy, are you okay?" Rita notices my discomfort. She's let go of my hands now, and is standing next to me in what appears to be complete and utter confusion.

_Kiss the girl._

I simply stare at her, wondering what I'm going to say. Every idea that pops into my head sounds stupid.

_Kiss the girl_.

"Roddy, what's going on?" Rita seems slightly worried now. I don't blame her; I'm quite worried myself.

_KISS THE GIRL._

The voice is louder this time. I suck up whatever courage I have left in my body and reach forward, grabbing Rita by her shoulders and pulling her in for a kiss.

She stiffens as our lips meet. Instantly, my mind goes blank. No more never-ending loop of that annoying song, no more images that make me go crazy thinking about them, nothing.

Rita finally relaxes, and we pull away, letting the kiss linger. She has a slight grin on her face, but nothing more. Slugs that I didn't realize were watching us begin to cheer.

"What was that for?" she asks. I draw another blank in my mind.

"Er… Slugs… you… song…" I can't form an actual sentence, but Rita doesn't seem to notice. She just stands there, waiting. I glance over at one of the slugs.

"Kiss the girl." I state simply. Rita raises an eyebrow.

"Kiss the girl?" she says. The slug, as if on cue, begins to sing.

"Sha la la la la la la la la my oh my! You're looking quite too shy! You want to _kiss the girl!_" it sings. Rita looks at the slug, then to me, before a smile blossoms on her face.

"I get it. Kiss the girl." she says. I have a very cheesy line in my head, but I choose not to say it. Instead, I take it as an invitation. I reach down and kiss her again, and this time, she goes right along with it.

**A/N: There you go! If you like it, raise your hand! I made it fluffy, and I'm not very good at fluffy. Hope you like it anyways.**

**Dedicated to one of my friends, because we tease her with this song all the time. She's probably crouched behind a corner or something, waiting for me, with a hacksaw in hand. **

**Either that, or she's going to taunt me with my own Disney song via a fic of her own. (Oh, how I wish you wouldn't please!) **

**May your lives be merry and filled with singing slugs! **


End file.
